As soon as Pichea and I stopped brangling we could hear the dogs. The Lab was filling the night with a deep-throated baying; the earmuff responded with a higher-pitched antiphon, and the three inside were providing a faint accompaniment echoed by the rest of the dogs on the street. Behind us even Peppy interrupted her nursing with an occasional bark. So maybe Mrs. Frizell wasn’t the most wonderful neighbor in the world. But why couldn’t the Picheas have stayed in Lincoln Park where they belonged?
When we opened Mrs. Frizell’s front gate the Lab rushed over and jumped up at me. I grabbed his front paws before he could knock me off balance.
“Easy, guy, easy. We just want to see if your mistress is okay.”
I dropped his legs and went up the shallow steps to the door. I knocked my shin against an old metal chair and swore under my breath. Fortunately Mr. Contreras had remembered a flashlight. He shone it on the door while I worked the locks.
“Stupid jerks are afraid of the dogs. Afraid of being caught breaking and entering with you. That lawyer’s the kind of management creep you got to watch out for: can’t do his dirty work for himself, gets on the phone and hires someone to do it for him.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Hold the light steady, okay?”
The lock should have taken me thirty seconds, but the Lab kept rushing at my legs until Carol managed to grab him by the scruff and hang on to him. After that I only had to contend with Mr. Contreras’s moving the light as he emphasized his contempt for Todd and Vinnie. It was a good five minutes before I finally felt the simple latch click back.
As soon as I opened the door the other dogs, who’d been barking and scratching on the other side, came pelting out at us. Behind me I could hear a sharp yell from one of the guys, and then a yelp from one of the dogs.
“Did you see that?” I couldn’t tell if the angry squeak belonged to Todd or Vinnie. “That damned mutt bit me.”
“Will the perpetrator step forward for a dog biscuit and a medal?” I said, but under my breath.
The stench in the house was so bad that I wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. I took the light from Mr. Contreras and shone it around the entryway, hoping to find a light switch. The inside dogs had been relieving themselves by the door and I didn’t want to step in the mess. I couldn’t see a switch, so I got as clear a look as possible at the dimensions of the urine and did a standing broad jump across it.
“Mrs. Frizell! Mrs. Frizell! Are you home?”
Her neighbor, who’d hovered on the front walk while I worked on the lock, came in with Carol, clucking her tongue and making worried sounds in her throat. The dogs rushed past us, spattering our legs with urine.
“Mrs. Frizell? It’s me, Mrs. Hellstrom. We just want to see if you’re all right.”
Mrs. Hellstrom found a lamp inside the living room door. In its feeble glow I finally saw a wall switch for the hall. It had been a long time since Mrs. Frizell had felt the impulse to clean anything. Dust had disintegrated into a thick coat of dirt; our damp shoes turned it to mud. Even through the stench and the chaos, though, it was clear that the only place the dogs had been relieving themselves was by the door. She looked after them even if she didn’t care about herself.
I followed the Lab up the stairs, playing the flashlight on the threadbare carpet, choking and sneezing on the dust I kicked up. The dog led me to the bathroom. Mrs. Frizell was lying on the floor, naked except for a towel clutched to her side.
I turned on the switch but the light was burned out. I called the news down to Carol and knelt down to find Mrs. FrizeU’s pulse. The Lab, energetically licking her face, growled at me but didn’t try to bite me. Just as Carol and Mrs. Hellstrom joined me I felt a faint flutter.
“Bruce,” I heard Mrs. Frizell say faintly as I backed away. “Bruce, don’t leave me.”
“No, honey,” Mrs. Hellstrom said. “He won’t leave you. You’re gonna be okay now—you just took a bad fall.”
“Can you get me a better light, Vic?” Carol said sharply. “And call 911. She’s going to need a hospital.”
I shoved my way past the other dogs crowding into the doorway and found the old woman’s bedroom. As I went in I tripped and fell over the piles of bedding on the floor. I supposed they were for the dogs, although I had assumed they would sleep in bed with her. I unscrewed the twenty-watt bulb from the naked gooseneck lamp by the bed and took it back to the bathroom.
“Blankets, Vic, and get that ambulance,” Carol said sharply, not looking up.
“Mrs. Hellstrom? Can you bring some blankets while I hunt for a telephone?”
Mrs. Hellstrom was glad to be useful, but clucked again in dismay when she saw the blankets. “These are so dirty, maybe I ought to go home and get something clean.”